Monthly Archives: August 2011

i got access to one of my favorite clothing sources recently! namely, lennie’s closet. i love it when she weeds out her closet. we used to live together, and it was awesome living with someone who is the same size as me and has better taste in clothes (and is liberal about lending stuff). the dress is a little short, though, so… leggings.

i’ve been loving what would a nerd wear recently. she linked to this article about ethical buying and fashion recently, and it got me to thinking… it’s a difficult thought vortex for me, where i start with ‘even if i can get the guarantee that the people making the clothing are getting minimum-wage, what about the people who made the fabric? where was the cotton farmed? what dyes were used?’ and then i start thinking about cotton farming and what a double edged blade it is… and i got myself into a bit of a funk.

i wonder what my options are to support practices i actually believe in and not break the bank. the problem is that this is a question i absolutely have no answer to. any thoughts out there?

Like this:

i’ve been painting the bathroom and thinking about our towels. right now we have mismatched, super old towels that don’t go with each other or the new color of the bathroom. so i’ve been daydreaming about new towels, and what colors would suit the new wall color:

this beauty has been going around pinterest like gangbusters (that’s a thing people still say, right?). and, may i ask why i don’t have any grey skirts? it’s totally my favorite neutral! and occasionally it’s my favorite color, too!

oh, but there’s a problem here… i don’t own any maxi skirts… but thanks to my over-priced local thrift store (what is that about?) i do own a maxi dress! so i thought i’d be clever and wear it as a maxi skirt:

well, i’m certainly not as lithe and willow-y as my inspiration…

blouse j. crewbelt forever21maxi dress thriftedboots j. crew

the neckline is a bit tighter than the waistline… i hope i don’t stretch it too much. slash i hope my waist will forgive me for pinching it thusly.

anyways, i feel like a pioneer. that was the point of this. either a pioneer or a worker at the triangle shirt waist factory. anyways, i definitely feel like a piece of american melodrama.

that and perhaps this maxi dress came home with me to become a maxi skirt? do we smell a reconstruction coming on?

i was complaining to myself in an inner monologue that i don’t get enough of my own knits out. too many of them languish… so i grabbed my goldf(ishbel)!

Like this:

whee! finished. we took a mini road trip this weekend, and on the way back we exited into a town we have stopped at previously, but without realizing that we were taking the other exit. so we drove through the town in order to get to the section we were familiar with and then ultimately back to the highway. but we saw some cool things driving through michigan city, indiana. like this building:

it was opportunely timed, as i had just finished sewing all of the ends in on my second toast.

pattern: a mashup of toast and ships & seaside
yarn: rowan kid classic (leftovers from my rain on bricks cowl) in charcoal, grey, burgundy and natural (maybe 1/3 of a skein-or 50 yds-of the charcoal and natural, and 1/10 of a skein-or 20 yds-of the burgundy and grey)
needles: US size 8 (5mm)

mods: well, a few actually. so i used a modified stripe sequence based on the ships & seaside pattern that i had already knit up using the same yarn. i cut all of the numbers and stripes approximately in half.

i also made them reversible. when the white side is facing down, they are arm warmers. when they grey side is facing down, they are fingerless mitts. i knit several rows flat to create a little gap in the fabric, so that the thumb hole would be unobtrusive and not interrupt their function as arm warmers.

the good news is: i like these quite a bit. i can see them getting a lot of use. i’m not sure how well they will wear, but i doubt i will be wearing them for any manual labor. more likely these will be driving mitts and keeping me warm at work mitts.

i swear i didn’t have my eyes closed in all the pictures. just the ones that were good of the mitts…

the bad news: this didn’t get rid of the kid classic. i still have a little bit left. but it can take another break while i figure out what to use it for…

Like this:

one of my good friends has undertakenstash-busting, and is doing it in a really cool way (i think!). she is in a very transitional place right now, so a lot of her possessions are in storage. so! she has begun the process of stash-busting by taking out one bin of yarn from storage, and knitting what she can with what is in it.

how great is that? some of the coolest things are born of limitations!

there’s no real way for me to replicate those same types of limitations (unless you guys can think of one? but my stash storage means that i have pretty easy access to most of it at once), but i would love to support her endeavor in stash busting… so i am!